Hardy, Thomas: - "The poet and novelist Thomas Hardy is perhaps most famous for his powerfully visual novels. Thomas Hardy was born in Higher Bockhampton, in Dorset - and the fictitious Wessex where he sets most of his novels is clearly inspired by south-west England. Son of a stonemason, and trained as an architect, he wrote in his spare time until the success of Far From The Madding Crowd (1874). Between 1874 and 1895, he wrote over a dozen novels and collections of stories, including The Return of the Native (1878), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) and Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891). After the adverse reception of the savagely bleak Jude the Obscure (1895) he turned to poetry, which he continued to write and publish throughout the rest of his life."